Cates v. State

66 S.W.3d 404, 2001 Tex. App. LEXIS 7999, 2001 WL 1517409
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedNovember 29, 2001
DocketNo. 14-99-01152-CR
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 66 S.W.3d 404 (Cates v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cates v. State, 66 S.W.3d 404, 2001 Tex. App. LEXIS 7999, 2001 WL 1517409 (Tex. Ct. App. 2001).

Opinions

OPINION

ANDERSON, Justice.

We withdraw the opinion issued October 11, 2001, and substitute the following opinion in its place. Appellant’s motion for rehearing is overruled.

The State charged appellant, Johnny Weldon Cates, II, with the offense of failure to stop and render aid. Over his plea of not guilty, a jury found appellant guilty of the offense charged. In addition, the jury found that appellant used a deadly weapon in the commission of the offense. The jury assessed punishment at five years imprisonment in the Institutional Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and assessed a $5,000 fine.

Appellant appeals his conviction in three points of error, contending the evidence was legally and factually insufficient to sustain a conviction, and the evidence was legally insufficient to sustain the jury’s affirmative finding of a deadly weapon. We affirm.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

Because we find it critical to our analysis to fully develop the facts of the case, especially the time line, we review the testimony of the crucial witnesses in detail.

Brent Tucker

During the early morning hours of December 23, 1998, Brent Tucker lost control of his automobile while negotiating a curve and his vehicle burst into flames after striking a concrete culvert and a tree. Tucker helped extricate his passenger, [407]*407Brandon James Smith, from the burning vehicle. Tucker then left to find a telephone to summon assistance. He ran to Karen Mittelstedt’s house but she did not have a phone, and then to a second house but no one answered. An unidentified party driving by stopped and offered her phone which did not work. Before he had an opportunity to continue his search, someone ran up to him and told him that Smith had just been struck by a truck. He ran back to the scene and found Smith lying in the road. Not more than a minute later, an officer arrived and placed him in the back seat of his cruiser. Tucker said that he thought Smith, who died from his injuries, had been struck sometime between 1:45 and 2:00 a.m.

Claudia Wong

Claudia Wong and her husband were night carriers for the Houston Chronicle newspaper. Shortly after 2:30 a.m., they were driving eastbound on Spring Cypress when a man on the road attempted to wave them down. They thought he was drunk and drove on. They then noticed Tucker’s burning vehicle. They, drove by the wreck, circled around and stopped along the shoulder of the road. Brandon Smith approached their car and attempted to speak with Mr. Wong who did not speak English. Claudia Wong said that Smith was upset about the accident. Smith then walked to the rear of their car. Wong lost sight of him but she heard the sound of a vehicle hitting Smith. She saw a dark-colored pickup truck pull away from the scene. The Wongs followed the truck, up to speeds of 85-90 miles per hour. Claudia Wong wrote down the license plate number of the pickup when it stopped at a traffic control light. The Wongs returned to the accident scene and gave the license number to a sheriffs deputy who arrived on the scene. Investigators determined that the license number provided by the Wongs was registered to the appellant and his address was just a few miles from the accident scene.

Stacy Cullever

Stacy Cullever was driving home from a friend’s house that evening. She was driving westbound on Spring Cypress Road. She testified that she drove up on the accident scene between 2:00 and 2:30 a.m. She pulled over and spotted Smith among a group of people gathered along the side of the road. She got out of her car and approached as Smith began to cross the street. She noticed the headlights of an oncoming vehicle traveling eastbound on Spring Cypress toward Smith. She attempted to warn Smith before he was struck by the driver’s side of the truck, thrown onto the hood and falling to the roadway. Subsequently, the truck veered off across the shoulder and onto the grass, she said. The driver slowed for a moment before returning to the roadway, leaving the scene without checking on Smith’s condition. She ran up to Smith and instructed someone to pull their vehicle across the road to block other traffic. She then went back to her vehicle and left to find help. She spotted and passed a Sheriffs vehicle, circled around, and sped up behind the cruiser which was headed toward the accident.

Karen Mittelstedt

Defense witness Karen Mittelstedt lived on Spring Cypress. She testified that she saw Tucker’s car on fire and that Tucker came to her home to use her phone. She saw the truck strike Smith, swerve off the road, slow down a little bit and take off. She also testified that she thought there were two people in the truck and that she heard one of them say “[g]o, go, go.” She was never asked about the time she witnessed the collision.

D.N. Harden

Sheriffs Deputy D.N. Harden was driving westbound on Spring Cypress when he [408]*408noticed someone behind him flashing their headlights. Shortly thereafter, he arrived at the accident scene. The time was 2:48 a.m. Tucker’s car was fully aflame. He called dispatch, reported the accident and called for the fire department. He said that someone claiming to be the owner of the vehicle approached him and told him that his passenger had been hit by a car. Harden approached and observed Smith, then walked back to his car and called for an ambulance. He placed Tucker in the back seat of his cruiser.

David Hilborn

David Hilborn was an accident investigator with the Sheriffs department. He received a dispatch at 2:49 a.m. to respond to an accident on Spring Cypress. He arrived at 2:58 a.m. He believed the accident occurred at 2:85 a.m. A witness gave him the license plate number of the vehicle that struck Smith. The vehicle belonged to Johnny Cates. He calculated the time to travel from the accident scene to Mark Nye’s house, where appellant lived, to be no more than five minutes. He “cleared” the scene with dispatch at 4:35 a.m. but may have remained there a few minutes longer before arriving at appellant’s residence at approximately 4:45 in the morning. He found a black Ford pickup parked on the street in front of appellant’s residence. The truck’s license plate matched the number recorded by the Wongs. He noticed the truck had visible damage, consistent with the collision under investigation, which included scuff marks and a shallow dent on the driver’s side hood. Hilborn was met by the owner of the house Mark Nye. Appellant was one of four roommates at the time. Hilborn testified that appellant’s eyes were bloodshot, his speech sluggish, and that he could smell alcohol from appellant. Hilborn asked appellant if he drove his vehicle and appellant stated that he drove home form a taxidermist shop that evening. When asked the route appellant drove to get home, appellant stated that he took Spring Cypress to Stuebner Airline to Klein Church Road. This route avoids the scene of the accident. The route, however, conflicts in that Stuebner Airline runs parallel to Klein Church Road and appellant needed to use the connecting street Louetta Road. Even so, this route still avoids the scene of the accident.

Mark Nye

Mark Nye was the owner of the home in which Johnny Cates lived. Nye testified he stayed home that night with his girlfriend watching movies. Around 2:00 a.m., Nye’s girlfriend woke him and said that she was leaving.

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Bluebook (online)
66 S.W.3d 404, 2001 Tex. App. LEXIS 7999, 2001 WL 1517409, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cates-v-state-texapp-2001.